Airlines in Africa

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The regulatory framework in Africa in which international airline groups operate is far from uniform. Although several African states have embraced the principles of liberalization with regard to the African market and intra-African air transport, intercontinental routes are still often subject to strict protectionist policies. In order to protect their national carriers, many African governments continue to opt for restrictive regulations in terms of market access, seat capacity and frequency of services. Thus, air transport between Europe/the US and Africa is still based on the complex system of strict bilateral agreements negotiated separately by pairs of countries. Because such policies, by their nature, impose limitations on the volume of tourist traffic, they often have a detrimental influence on the development of tourism and thus also on regional growth in Africa. Only recently have some more liberal African governments started negotiating open skies bilateral agreements with selected European countries and the US. However, it should not be assumed that, if the liberalization and deregulation of air transportation in Africa progresses, the increased tourist traffic will automatically foster economic development in African tourist destinations. P. 26

That paragraph is from a paper by Piotr Niewiadomski.

And more

The role of national authorities can also be critical in owning, or co-owning, national airlines and related infrastructure such as airports. If this is the case, their tendency to protect national airlines and thus to opt for protective bilateral agreements can be very strong. By 1991, almost all African carriers had been owned by the state (Schlumberger 2010). Currently, as many as 25 African states have fully or partially state-owned carriers. While 20 of them are relatively weak competitors in the market, the national airlines of Egypt (Egyptair), Morocco (Royal Air Maroc), Kenya (Kenya Airways), Ethiopia (Ethiopian Airlines) and South Africa (South African Airways) are the strongest carriers in Africa (Schlumberger 2010). Out of the three focal states, only Uganda does not currently have a state-owned airline.

Regarding airports and air navigation services, the situation in Africa is even more complex. In contrast with South Africa, where airports and air navigation services were privatized in the early 1990s (Goldstein 2001; Prins and Lombard 1995), air navigation services and airports in Kenya and Uganda are still in the hands of the government. Thus, in Uganda all airports are owned by the Civil Aviation Authority of Uganda – a state agency of the Ministry of Works and Transport. In Kenya, airports are owned and managed by the Kenyan Airport Authority, while navigation services are provided by the Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority – both having the status of state corporations overseen by the Ministry of Transport. Meanwhile, in South Africa, airports are owned by the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), whereas air navigation services are provided by the Air Traffic and Navigation Services Company, both established by the state and privatized in the 1990s (see Goldstein 2001; Prins and Lombard 1995). P. 20.

Ethnic Favoritism and Democracy [Kenya]

Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantification of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guided by a model it then examines whether the transition in and out of democracy under the same president constrains or exacerbates ethnic favoritism. Across the 1963 to 2011 period, we find strong evidence of ethnic favoritism: districts that share the ethnicity of the president receive twice as much expenditure on roads and have four times the length of paved roads built. This favoritism disappears during periods of democracy.

That is from a new paper by Burgess et al.  
HT: Mark Lee. 

Randomized Trials: A tip of the Iceberg

The recent wave of randomized trials in development economics has provoked criticisms regarding external validity. We investigate two concerns—heterogeneity across beneficiaries and implementers—in a randomized trial of contract teachers in Kenyan schools. The intervention, previously shown to raise test scores in NGO-led trials in Western Kenya and parts of India, was replicated across all Kenyan provinces by an NGO and the government. Strong effects of short- term contracts produced in controlled experimental settings are lost in weak public institutions: NGO implementation produces a positive effect on test scores across diverse contexts, while government implementation yields zero effect. The data suggests that the stark contrast in success between the government and NGO arm can be traced back to implementation constraints and political economy forces put in motion as the program went to scale.

I believe the paper is already well known by development economists. 

One can see those results as worrisome because they tell us how difficult it is to scale up interventions to improve education (and effective policies in general) across different environments within one country, let along across countries, or even across continents. 

One can also see the findings of the paper as a signal of the humongous challenging work ahead for RCTs economists to find out next the numerous circumstances under which such and such intervention can be scalable, which might require running RCTs to find out about RCTs (as the paper shows). 

The findings of the paper are the tip of the iceberg. Many uncertainties lie beneath the surface, so to speak. 

It is a very creative paper. It is by Tessa Bold, Mwangi Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Alice Ng’ang’a, and Justin Sandefur (March 2013) and it is titled: "Scaling Up What Works: Experimental Evidence on External Validity in Kenyan Education."

The authors conclude:

In the terminology of Shadish, Campbell and Cook’s (2002) classic text on gen- eralizing experimental results, this is a question of ‘construct validity’ rather than external validity per se, i.e., of identifying the higher order construct represented by the experimental treatment. In most of the experimental evaluation literature in development economics, the treatment construct is defined to include only the school- or clinic-level intervention, abstracting from the institutional context of these interventions. Our findings suggest that the treatment in this case was not a “contract teacher”, but rather a multi-layered organizational structure including monitoring systems, payroll departments, long-run career incentives and political pressures.

Political Competition: Research on Kenya Post-Election Violence

This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence. To answer these questions, a panel survey conducted before and after the elections is combined with external indicators of electoral violence. We find that political parties targeted vote-buying towards specific groups to weaken the support of their political rivals and to mobilize their own supporters. Furthermore, parties instigated violence strategically in areas where they were less likely to win. Although the victims of violence would prefer that parties are no longer allowed to organize in ethnic or religious lines, they are more likely to identify in ethnic terms, support the use of violence and avoid relying on the police to resolve disputes. The overall findings suggest an increased risk of electoral-violence reoccurring.

That is from the new paper by Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero (November 2012), "An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices and Effects of Political Violence." Her findings are consistent with recent research by Brown and Sriram who argue: 

. . . [T]he fundamental reason why the government has not initiated systematic prosecutions in regular domestic courts – or created, as promised, a hybrid national/international tribunal – is that those in charge of establishing these processes are, in many cases, those whom it would prosecute or their close allies.

How can election-related violence be reduced or eliminated in countries like Kenya? More civic education could help. Although this might sound like a "romantic" and ineffective solution there is evidence to the contrary. 

When I think about post-election violence I picture a group of people that gets out of control and violence escalates; in other words, a spontaneous and non-rational collective-action. The papers above however show that in the case of Kenya, post-election violence is the result of a deliberate and rational plan.

A graph from Gutiérrez-Romero's paper:

She concludes:

The evidence suggests that political parties used illegal electoral practices strategically, despite the fact that the main parties contending had formed only recently, lacked political infrastructure such as provincial branch offices and provided little instruction to their local candidates, a characteristic shared with other African countries (LeBas 2011; Kramon 2011). The results suggest that the ethno-political cleavages that shape the formation of political parties and the mobilization of voters in African democracies (Mozaffar, Scarrit and Galaich 2003), are also a robust factor in explaining the strategic use of illegal electoral practices . . . 

The areas with more closely contested elections received more threats, more instigation of violence, and reported a higher incidence of gangs operating in their areas with political links both before and after the elections. The reason political actors targeted these areas was to prevent rival supporters from voting, using these tactics as a measure of ‘damage control’. 

Pretty informative paper. The discussion on enforcing ethnic identity to make election violence more acceptable is also interesting.  

Determinants of School Choice in Kenya

The number of private schools has increased by more than four times since the introduction of the Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in 2003 in Kenya. With the help of panel data obtained from rural Kenya, we observed that the proportion of children attending private primary schools increased from 4.6% in 2004 to 11.5% in 2007. The estimation results suggest that parents react to the quality of public education, as measured by the pupil–teacher ratios of public schools, by attending private schools and transferring to different schools. Their reaction also depends on the wealth of households and gender.

From Nishimura and Yamano (World Development, November 2012). Early draft (2008).